


Rise of a Tyrant

by ZScalantian



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Headcanon, Historical look at canon, Historical timelines, Multiple Pov, Pre-Canon, Shinra Company, Snapshots, Sort-of-okay People being Terrible too, Terrible People Being Terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 14,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27088303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZScalantian/pseuds/ZScalantian
Summary: Shinra Electric Power Company was once known as Shinra Manufacturing and before that, it was Shinra Weapons Manufacturing.  How did it change?How did it take over the planet?
Relationships: President Shinra/Lazard Deusericus's Mother, President Shinra/Rufus Shinra's Mother
Comments: 15
Kudos: 7
Collections: Fic In A Box





	1. 1940s, Rupert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Filigranka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to warn the reader that certain parts of this fic may subtextually parallel or echo unfortunate trends in the United States, and that President Shinra may unpleasantly remind you of a certain other president. If this is going to upset or harm your mental health, please click the back button; I'd far prefer that you be safe.

They always summered in the mountains. August in Junon was unpleasant and muggy, even with the coastal breezes that swirled inland in the afternoons, bearing the saltwater, seaweed, and fish stench of the harbor. So: mountains. They stayed in a manor built by his grandfather, high in the Nibel range, near enough to a mining town that supplies and servants were easy, distant enough for privacy.

The manor was old, with creaking stairs, and smelled of mold when they arrived, though they always sent servants ahead of time to air the place out. It had electricity, at least, powered by a coal furnace in the basement, an amenity few of the little houses in the town below could boast. It even had a telephone line. In town, only the inn and the Lockharts, the local bigshot family, could say the same.

The phones were unreliable, though. Often enough, one or another of the towers that marched up and down the mountain slopes was down due to winds, or fire, or lightning - summer storms were fierce here -, and no one cared enough or could afford to repair the gap. Sometimes, monsters had denned in the area, and repairs had to wait until a mercenary could be hired to clear them out. 

It was highly inefficient. Rupert despised it. He was finding, lately, that he despised most things. He was surrounded by the inefficient, the flawed, and the weak. Currently, he sat in his father’s study, rolling a cigar between his square fingers, and despised the weakness of the man across from him.

Renard Shinra’s face was florid with rage and the telegram trembled in his grip. “Idiots!” he barked. “They can’t see the value sitting under their noses!” He pushed back his chair and stood in a stormy movement, tossing the paper to the desk. 

Rupert leaned across to pick it up. His eyes glanced across the scant lines and narrowed.

…………………………....................……..CAJAH…………………………....................……..  


World Telegram Co.

Class of Service

______________

Day Message

Night Message

Preferred ClassX

Received

______________

Nibelheim Inn

10 am

[μ] – εγλ 1943

  


CERTIFIED RECIEVED - IK

Renard Shinra

Nibelheim

Bietta regretfully rejects offer of Factory sale

Marcus Bietta, President  
Bietta Explosives

______________________________________________________________  
______________________________________________________________ 

est. [μ] – εγλ 1924

“A terse way of informing us,” he remarked.

His father swung a hand through the air sharply. “They’ll send a letter or something to the office, too, the cretins. This was their chance to get ahead, and they missed it! It’s no wonder we’ve always outperformed them!”

Rupert didn’t say anything. He looked at the telegram again, seeing the words without absorbing them, and set the cigar between his teeth. Bietta was a small-time, localized rival to Shinra Weapons Manufacturing Works, but Shinra was sinking and they weren’t. Or not as badly. They were based in Fort Condor, which was already sitting on more bombs than it could ever use, but Bietta had pivoted into selling its explosives to mining companies and thereby stayed afloat.

In the meantime… all Renard Shinra could think of was to try selling off assets. In an economic downturn, in a time of peace treaties and wound-licking. No one was purchasing Shinra products in enough bulk anymore to keep the over-inflated company solvent, and no one needed their cast-off properties and war relics either. 

The world was shrinking again, after its exciting wartime boom, and Shinra’s future was shrinking with it.

Renard coughed as a drift of smoke reached him, and waved his hand in front of his face. “Get that damn thing out of here, Rupert, or put it out.”

The desk was stacked with paperwork; Rupert made sure to set the telegram in a clear spot where it could stare tauntingly up at his father. “I’ll see how Mother is.” He let himself out. 

She was, of course, in her conservatory on the second floor, asleep on a chaise lounge, a paperback fallen from her fingers onto the floor beside her. Rupert, who inhaled the rich smoke of his cigar without issue, always felt choked in the damp heat of this room. The crisp alpine air was transmuted into a rainforest atmosphere, all humidifiers and sunshine, and broad-leafed green plants.

He despised his mother, too. What a waste of space she had going here. Plants were fine, in their place - they were needed for food and oxygen. Rupert didn’t see the appeal of growing plants for their flowers, but he accepted that he was in a minority there. But his mother used the conservatory to grow ferns and palms and other things he hadn’t bothered to learn the name of, and they were neither useful nor beautiful. 

Much like his parents, come to think of it. 

He blew out a cloud of grey smoke. It twisted and dissipated slowly through the thick air. He imagined it seeping into the plants with the humidity, tendrils of grey crawling through their green veins until they drooped and died, and he was rid of their irritating presence.

Rupert turned on his heel and left his mother and her make-believe jungle. He would go into town again to wire Victor and his attorney to see how things were getting on at home. Perhaps that toothsome little blonde would be around, too, to make Rupert’s afternoon somewhat more entertaining than his morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/14/20. The original version of this was posted with placeholder text in the telegram area; I completely forgot to put it in. *headdesk* If it shows up weirdly for you, try enabling work skins.


	2. 1940s, Palmer

Cigarette smoke and perfume hung in the heavy air as a brass band played and a silken-voiced crooner sang in the back of the room. Members of Junon’s high society moved about in evening suits and shimmering dresses, champagne, and canapés in their hands. Palmer snagged a handful of shrimp mousse cream puffs from a passing tray. They were much too light and airy for his taste, a seafood foam across his tongue, gone as swiftly as they had come. He’d prefer something heavier, with more substance, but he would make do. 

There was a forced gaiety to the conversations around the room. Discussions of this chocobo race, that picture premiere, the upcoming fashion gala couldn’t help drifting to the recession and how hard it was, even on the glittering people in this room. Having to let go of longtime employees, selling off land parcels and buildings, the outrageous prices for everyday things. Of the collapse of family dynasties, bankruptcies, and new entrepreneurs rising to fill the holes. Palmer licked his lips. Such juicy gossip. 

A stern face with slicked-back blond hair caught his eye.

“Ah! Rupert! I’m glad you’re here.” He bustled over to the young man. No sign of the senior Shinras, yet again. Another tick in the evidence column that Rupert had made the company his own, unofficially replacing his father as chairman. They made small talk for a few moments, then Palmer asked, “You’re still looking for new avenues to expand into, right?”

“That’s right. Let me thank you for introducing me to Edgar. His Mako energy research is quite interesting.” Rupert’s face was locked into a heavy-lidded smirk of faint superiority, but Palmer didn’t let that put him off. The boy’s gratitude was real, but to keep it, Palmer needed to keep fostering it.

“Good, good. Glad to be of help. Listen, there’s another person here I’d like to introduce you to. He’s from the university, they send him to these sorts of things because he’s good at convincing people they want to donate to the school. Watch your wallet with him. But he’s fascinating to listen to, might have a project that will catch your interest.”

He guided the young Shinra across the room to a cluster of laughing men and women. Another young man, brown suit, brown hair, and a neat mustache, was in the center of the knot, speaking with great animation. “Excuse me, excuse me.” He pushed through, waving the others away. “We need a moment if you please.” He was doing them all a favor, really, saving their pocketbooks. 

“Gast, good to see you here. I’d like to make introductions,” he said, smiling. Gast showed no dismay at losing his audience, only an alert curiosity. “This is Rupert Shinra, of Shinra Weapons Manufacturing. He’s been looking to expand the business into new fields, something besides munitions and all that. Rupert, this is Gast Faremis.” The youngest assistant professor of Junon University bowed slightly; Rupert nodded. Palmer continued, “He teaches history, though if I remember correctly, your degree is in medical biology…” He trailed off, leaving the statement open to reply.

“My Doctorate. I do have a Mastery in history, and I was able to slip into an open faculty position.”

“You must have worked hard,” said Rupert. “To get two degrees, at your age.” His words were faintly condescending. He’d clearly sized up Gast as a few years younger than himself, and with the arrogance of the young, thought that slight difference mattered.

A little flicker of irritation muddled Gast’s brown eyes, but he smiled. “I started at age fifteen, took double course loads, and finished at twenty-one. Do you have a degree?” A small jab back. Palmer’s eyes flicked to Rupert. This was as good as watching a badminton tournament.

“A two-year, in Business. I’ve always been set to inherit my father’s company. I didn’t see any need to go farther than that.” A man who hated to waste effort was young Shinra. The jab failed.

“And you’re looking to expand into new realms of business. Anything in particular?”

“New things. New technologies, new ways of looking at the world. My company’s been stuck in the past for too long. It’s time to move forward.”

Gast gave a small chuckle. “And you’re talking to a history teacher about it? I wouldn’t write the past off that quickly.”

Rupert gave Palmer an irritated look, as though he thought he’d been set up for nothing. “Give me an example,” he challenged. 

It was clearly the conversational opening Gast had been looking for. The animated liveliness returned at once to his face. “I’ve been looking into the Ancients. I know society dismisses them as myth and hokey religion, but we’re making new discoveries about them constantly these days, for the past year, we’re writing incredible papers on them. Some colleagues and I believe they had technology and abilities far surpassing our own modern knowledge. Electricity is only a few decades old, yet we have compelling evidence that they had it. Powered flight has only been around for the last twenty years, but they had it two thousand years ago. There are even theories that they are the ones who created materia. Is that something we can replicate? What else have we lost to time? What calamity befell them that caused their culture to collapse? Were they truly that different from humans? What more can we learn?” He slowed and smiled, warm and charming. Easy to see why he was a good fundraiser. “Sorry, I get a bit carried away. There’s much more than that, a lot that’s relevant and useful for us today.”

There was a thaw in Rupert’s facade. “Indeed. I think you’re right. Perhaps the past can be mined for something of modern value.”


	3. 1950s, Edgar

The sun was sparkling on the sapphire sea, catching on the small, choppy waves. Not a cloud in the sky, and a strong wind. Edgar tilted his head back and breathed deeply. It was cold out today, winter breathing out its last sigh over the hill, and the audience was bundled in coats and scarves. Edgar’s dark blue jacket flapped behind him, as did the tails of the ribbon that tied back his light, wavy hair. Edgar liked this kind of weather. He found it bracing, a refreshing change from the overwhelming desert heat he’d grown up in. 

On the temporary stage, Rupert Shinra finished his speech and waved his hand. A technician flipped a switch, and the wall of monitors behind the stage lit up, each screen carrying a mosaic, pointillist piece of an image: Shinra’s new company logo, to accompany its changed name. Shinra Weapons Manufacturing was gone, all hail Shinra Manufacturing Works.

Junon’s mayor stepped to the podium next, thanking the company for its investments in Junon real estate, for its new factories which provided jobs and produced time- and labor-saving appliances that shipped across the continent and the sea, bringing cash and investment rolling back, and most of all, for launching its exciting program of improvement, modernity, and convenience …

Edgar’s eyes drifted away from the stage, down over the city. He could see it all from this high, exposed place - the stubby steel skyscrapers, the faded grandeur of the stone municipal buildings, the manor houses with their ocean-facing windows and rooftop walkways, the squeezed-together shops in the business district, the slumping wooden houses of the lower class, the higgledy-piggledy mess of the warehouses and docks by the waterfront… Centuries of architectural styles overlapped one another like layers of nacre on the inner side of a shell. They had been a feast for his senses, when he first arrived, but he no longer saw them. A modern city of metal overlaid them in his eyes. It gleamed bronze and copper in sunset light, rising like a monument, a promise to the future and the advancement of technology. 

_His city._ It would all start here. The buildings here at the top of the hill had already been demolished, the earth graded in broad terraces. Yellow earthmovers like mechanical dragons sat parked in rows to either side, forming an impromptu amphitheater. The construction detritus Edgar had observed on his visit last week - surveyor’s stakes and string lines, colored flags stuck in the gray soil, forgotten gloves and cups and cigarette butts - had been cleaned up in preparation for the official groundbreaking of Shinra’s new headquarters, the first building of the new Junon.

A loud, put-upon sigh beside him brought him back to the ceremony. Palmer shifted in his seat, the plastic creaking ominously, and leaned to mutter past Edgar, “Keep your remarks short, Victor, will you? I have a splendid lunch arranged for us all, but at this rate, it’ll be supper.”

Victor Shinra, blond and stolid, kept his eyes on the stage. “My speech is already written. I won’t deviate.”

Palmer turned puffy eyes on Edgar. “Then you, Edgar? I may starve if this keeps on.” He patted his ample stomach.

Edgar smiled, as warmly as he could manage. He owed a certain debt of gratitude to the financier; Palmer had introduced him to Rupert Shinra in the first place, and the architectural opportunities that the president had rolled out for him were grander than even the most fevered of Edgar’s dreams. It wasn’t often a man was invited to design a city how he pleased. And Palmer’s financial investment in the company had paved the way for Edgar’s work in the last few years.

But it was hard to feel any _personal_ affection for Palmer. He was too… greasy. He wined and dined, wheeled and dealed, and brought talent into the company - beside Victor, who was a Shinra cousin, every man in the front row of seats was a beneficiary of Palmer’s glad-handed inductions - but there was a look in his eye like a farmer sizing up the plumpness of the calves in his field, a sense of his handheld perpetually out for return favors, an ever-present wheedle in his voice that scratched at Edgar like the whine of a mosquito.

“Sorry, but this is my day,” he replied, his voice agreeably jovial. Victor looked at him sideways. Edgar nodded at him and said peaceably, “I know, I know, today’s the rebranding, but in a minute, I get to go up there and show all these people what a gorgeous city I’m going to transform this rotten old place into.” 

He looked down over the city again to the crisp blue harbor, seeing in double-vision, the extant buildings and the metal miracle inside his head. “Everyone will want to live here.”


	4. 1950s, Bugenhagen

Bugenhagen’s office was a mess. Papers, materia, and vials of mako were scattered across the desk, file cabinets, and every flat surface of the quietly beeping, flashing equipment. He kept intending to straighten up, but after failing a hundred similar resolutions in his long life, the thought was half-hearted at best. He knew where things were, pretty much, and that was what mattered.

Pretty much. He lifted aside an over-stuffed binder with splitting plastic seams, muttering to himself. “Where did I -?” The corner of a fist-sized silver box caught the light as he moved aside a rack of bean sprouts, each carefully labeled with the concentration of mako in its vial. “Aha!” He drew the box closer to him, opening it again to see the gleaming red materia inside.

“Thank you, Grimoire,” he murmured as he held the orb up to the light. A Bahamut Zero summon. The Bahamuts were a source of fascination to Valentine - the only summon to have multiple forms. At least, that humanity knew of. They were useful to Bugenhagen’s own research, too, about how knowledge in the lifestream expressed itself through the form of materia, and so Grimoire was lending him one.

Light gleamed through the materia, sending shafts of ruby dancing across his desk, giving the bean sprouts a bloody cast. Bugenhagen frowned, misgivings again crowding at him. His work on the properties of the lifestream gave him few answers, and many, many questions. Questions he didn’t put down in his progress reports, because the company did not want to know the answers, and if he asked his questions too loudly, might decide it did not want him, either.

It was not that Bugenhagen deeply treasured his place here in the metal guts of Shinra’s headquarters, and he was sickened by the false steel city it sat atop. He went out of his way to avoid speaking with the Shinra executives. He was chilled to the depths of his aching bones when he had to interact with them, see their increasingly naked greed, callousness, and lack of foresight up close. And it wasn’t as though this was the only place he could do his research. (His eyes drifted to a map pinned to the wall, the red thumbtack over Cosmo Canyon, where his heart was.)

He wanted to stay with Shinra for a simpler reason.

There was a burst of whining static, muffled under a pile of interview transcripts. A tinny voice sounded. “Bugenhagan! Grimoire!”

Bugenhagen put down the summon and moved the papers aside to uncover a radio set. “Gast,” he said, grinning. “Your weather must be horrible, I can barely understand you.”

The long-distance radios they used to communicate with the field had a good range, but Gast’s latest archeological dig had led him halfway around the planet, all the way to the frozen north. Bugenhagen’s joints protested at the mere thought of the place.

“It’s…once in a lifetime… wait…tell you!”

Bugenhagen cleared some earwax from his ears, sticking his pinkies in and swiveling them. “You may want to wait. I can barely hear you.”

“….Amazing….found….”

“Found what?”

“An….” The radio popped and rattled, drowning Gast’s voice.

“A what?”

“…ient….an anci….”

“An accident?”

“ANCIENT!”

Bugenhagen’s bushy eyebrows rose. “An Ancient?”

“Yes!…..In…mako crysta…..”

An Ancient inside a mako crystal. “Well, I’ll be. A whole one?” It wasn’t the first time something had been found preserved in a crystal. Extinct insects, birds, small reptiles, and mammals. Nothing approaching human-sized, let alone human-shaped. This was quite a find.

“Yes…intact.”

Bugenhagen leaned back in his chair, smiling, gazing into nowhere. This was why he wanted to stay, why he was willing to ignore Shinra’s shortsighted brutality. He, Gast, Grimoire, Edgar, along with their assistants… They were brilliant together. They corrected each other’s imbalances, fed each other’s theories, sparked ideas off one another in an ecstasy of inspiration. It was a purely intellectual kind of joy, to be in the company of genius, spurring his own mind to higher echelons of insight. Gast wouldn’t have gone north except for a stray line in an interview Bugenhagen had dug out of Junon University’s archives and shared with him in an unrelated discussion.

“Congratulations, Gast” he said. “Are you bringing it back?”

“…run tests…a while…”

“What?”

“NOT YET!”

Pity. He would like to see it, but he didn’t have any reason besides curiosity to visit Gast. He cast an eye over the cluttered room. And he certainly had plenty to do here.

“I look forward to hearing more about it! Grimoire’s gone home for the evening. Get in touch tomorrow morning, if you can, and tell us anything new!”

“..ill do.. Take ca…”

“Same to you.”

The static subsided. The green light on the radio dimmed. Bugenhagen picked up the summon materia again, rolling it around with his weak, gnarled fingers. His smile faded away, mouth drawing down under his white mustache.

This couldn’t last. He’d seen this kind of thing before, this kind of supernova gathering of genius. Had been part of one, too many decades ago, before the war. The balance of personalities, the shared interests, the work environment, it was all precarious. Eventually, something would shift, and the whole thing would collapse. If everyone was lucky, it would be a quiet event. 

In the worst cases, ‘supernova’ was an apt word for the destruction that followed.


	5. 1960s, Victor

Numbers, Victor had concluded long ago, were substantially easier to deal with than people. Left alone in his office to oversee the accounting and finance department, going over check stubs and receipts, and he was a happy man. Dealing with the other board members or his cousin’s grand ideas gave him headaches. 

Victor was a decade older than his cousin, and had at one point, fancied himself a tempering influence. Twenty years before, when Rupert was trying to dig the company out of the hole their parents had run it into, he’d listened to Victor, taking his advice on where to cut back, where to invest. He’d had a cold ruthlessness that impressed his older cousin, a clear-sighted lack of emotional vaporing that gave them an edge over their competitors. His expansions to the company had, with Victor’s advice, been necessary diversifications.

Victor looked glumly at the balance sheet in front of him. Expansion was not the proper term anymore. Sprawl was more like it. Shinra Manufacturing Works was no longer a lean shark zipping through the water, taking bites off anything that moved. A giant squid was a more accurate sea life metaphor these days. Strange, unknowable, tentacles everywhere. Rupert threw money at any project that piqued his interest.

He was still ruthless about it, strangling investments in their cribs if they didn’t show signs of paying off, but it didn’t offset the initial financial outlay, leaving the responsibility for balancing the books on Victor’s shoulders. 

And these latest additions… Well. Victor sighed out through his nose. Some were guaranteed to be profitable, like the new mako reactor in the Nibel mountains, more powerful and cost-efficient than the old models. Construction would be complete by the end of the year, supplying power to a formidable chunk of the west continent. Certainly it would make many of the area’s unruly towns and villages more amenable to Shinra’s increasing presence. 

Other projects had potential, and Victor tentatively approved of them. The new medical science team, for instance, that was producing more potent potions and ethers than the old water-based method. The returns might be enormous, but so were the costs. He needed to keep a close eye on it. That would be easier if it was taken out of Edgar’s Consumer Services division and spun into its own department. He would suggest that to Rupert later, in private. That way he wouldn’t have to deal with the other board members interrupting and trying to spin things their way.

However. Some projects. He flipped a few pages further in his binder, until he came to a print-out that was mainly red, and cleared his throat.

“In regards to Heidegger’s proposed army -” 

Heidegger interrupted, his booming voice drowning out Victor’s clipped tone. “Not army. Security force.”

The fingers of Victor’s unoccupied right hand drummed on the gleaming table. “You are proposing that we supply housing and food for them, which would imply that they are not punch-clock security guards, but an army.”

“ _Hired_ guards are not loyal. We need a corps that is dedicated to the company, not their paychecks.” Heidegger sounded practiced, like he was giving a speech for television, warming to his subject. “The company’s grown - we have a lot more to protect. Our competitors want our secrets. We need to discourage them.”

Edgar - who Victor would’ve thought had no dog in this fight - spoke up. “Maybe you’re unaware, Victor, cooped up in your office all the time, but my department is constantly fielding espionage attempts. Disgruntled employees trying to walk off with proprietary R&D, phone lines being tapped… There was a listening device planted in my office, by one of those punch-clock security guards you want us to keep on.”

Victor could almost hear the accounts crying. “An army, though -”

“Security force -”

“- is not cost effective. Training them, housing them, feeding them! Do any of you understand what it would do to our bottom line?”

Palmer looked up from his box of donuts, powdered sugar clinging in a circle around his mouth. “As I understand it, the reactors will basically have us printing gil. Surely we can afford it?”

Victor gestured to his spreadsheets. “Not with the number of projects we are currently sponsoring. And we’re in debt until the Nibelheim reactor is completed. I realize no one wants to hear it -”

“We’ll be in worse trouble,” Heidegger interrupted, “if anyone else learns how to refine mako. We’ve got to protect ourselves! The security force will guard the reactors as well as headquarters. And there’s the increased monster activity to account for. They can handle that too.”

“What do you think, Rupert?” he appealed. His cousin was watching them all. Rupert wasn’t going to help - he liked them arguing with each other. But Victor was _right_ about this, damn it.

“How many men are you thinking?” Rupert asked.

“To adequately cover all our bases, ideally, five thousand -”

Victor’s heart seized at the mere idea of the expense. Edgar leaned forward, asking incredulously, “ _Five thousand_?”

“- but two thousand would be adequate.”

Scrabbling for ammunition, Victor fired back. “How will they keep, to use Edgar’s example, disgruntled employees from walking out with reactor blueprints in their suitcases? You want to play war games, Heidegger, but your idea is inefficient.”

The man’s black beard bristled, and he opened his mouth, but Edgar cut him off. “Listen, when you brought the idea to me, I thought the idea had merit. But this is excessive. We need a scalpel, not a cudgel.” 

Relief went through Victor. The engineer was on his side after all. Palmer would go whatever way Rupert went, and Victor could persuade him now that Heidegger had overshot so badly.

He was counting his chickens too soon. Edgar turned sharply to address him, ribbon-tied hair swishing with the movement. “I apologize for my earlier tone, but Heidegger is still right. We cannot keep relying on hired guns. I _need_ some kind of security. We stand to lose a lot - any one of the researchers in my department carries incredible secrets in his head. If one of them were to defect, they wouldn’t even need to take anything with them to deal us a crippling blow.”

With a spray of crumbs, Palmer asked, “Is that a serious concern?”

Edgar hesitated. “I… Without naming names, yes. One or two of them are… less enthusiastic… than they once were. I’m not getting much use from his - their, work these days.”

“That sounds like a job for Human Resources,” Victor insisted. “A matter of internal morale.”

Rupert folded his hands together. With only that simple movement, their attention went to him. “Heidegger, put a pin in your idea. We’ll review it again, some time in the future. Edgar, you can draw up a proposal for your small force. Something to guard against threats from outside the company, and inside.”


	6. 1970s, Gast

The weather for the wedding couldn’t be more perfect. The sun was bright but not overly warm, the gentle sea breeze brought in a pleasant salt smell, not fishy from the docks or foul from the pollution under the plate. The two bands, one outside in the plaza, and one in the reception hall were playing separate songs that still mixed harmoniously, notes hanging in the air and supporting each further chord.

Gast drummed his fingers on the metal rail, watching. The day was beautiful. The mood was not.

Not everyone had been able to move up to Shinra’s high-risen city. The less fortunate had stayed below, and the filth of the upper plate leaked down through the cracks until the undercity was a noisome and unhealthy place. There were protests happening all over the city today, timed for maximum media exposure. Police in riot gear prevented any of it from drawing near headquarters, but the wedding guests were not much better pleased with the company.

The wealthy and well-connected, having so recently moved into their new digs, disapproved of Shinra’s plan to oust several hundred of them again in order to build a modern reactor in the city. The Nibelheim model was proving far more profitable than the old style, and Edgar had found a good location for it, reaching up from under the plate and soaring over all but the tallest buildings atop it, but three to four blocks of city would be cleared to make room for it. Even the ones who weren’t being eminent domain’d out of their penthouses were upset. They didn’t want to live beside a smoke-belching industrial skyscraper; it would damage their property values.

Some of that upset upper crust had snubbed their invitations, but they were the minority. Most of them showed up, lips curled and eyes dark, to try buttering up or berating the Shinra bigwigs. Or anyone who even looked like a bigwig.

It was them Gast was hiding from. He couldn’t leave and go to his lab - he didn’t want to offend his employer by missing the chance to wish him and his new bride well. So he was up on a high grated catwalk overlooking the table-filled square where the majority of guests were seated, not quite wealthy or well-connected enough to obtain inside seats. He leaned with elbows propped on a metal railing, wine glass held loosely in one hand, so he could still see the hall through the round, porthole-style windows. When Rupert came in, Gast planned to slip back inside and pretend he’d never been gone. 

He raised his glass to the empty air. He’d passed up the offered champagne in favor of a cabernet sauvignon. The dark red wine, the type Grimoire had favored, was much heavier than his usual won't.

“May the dead be remembered so they do not die,” he said and took a sip.

“A dark toast for such a happy occasion.”

Surprised, his fingers clenched around the stem. He turned to see Naghi stepping onto the catwalk. The head of Administrative Research was tall, almost bony, and wore a polite smile that never reached his dark assessing eyes.

Gast smiled back with an equally neutral affect. “I am lamenting Grimoire’s passing. He would have enjoyed the wine today. And the pageantry.” Grimoire Valentine had always leaned to the dramatic, with his cape and shaggy long hair. Gast had attended Grimoire’s wedding, too, one of a hundred-and-some guests seated in a high-vaulted church, stained glass bleeding colored light through the air. Rupert too had invited hundreds of guests. It made Gast feel isolated. Big weddings seemed like a lot of work, eating up time and money he’d rather spend elsewhere. He hoped that when he married if he married, his future bride would be happy with a small ceremony.

Time and the nature of his work had changed him. Parties and the company of strangers were enervating, not exhilarating. He couldn’t keep himself from thinking of the work he could be doing, of JENOVA and her secrets. If Bugenhagen were still here, the older man would say Gast was spending too much time cooped up in his lab.

He sighed, and Naghi seemed to pick up on his loneliness, waving his long-fingered hand at the square. “There’s nobody down there whose company you’d enjoy?”

Gast looked down. In the afternoon sunlight, everything glittered. The white tablecloths, golden cutlery, polished seashell centerpieces, the 1/358th scale models of Junon set on plinths. Laughter came up with the music. Something cold pulled tight inside his chest.

“I’m afraid my social circle has shrunk recently.”

Naghi regarded him. “Perhaps you need a new project. Grimoire took on a protégé before his passing. Maybe it’s time you did the same.”

He was not so foolish as to think that Naghi’s advice came from any sort of pure-hearted kindness. He was asking Gast to choose the next generation of Shinra’s brilliant scientists, to pick a successor to his research, should he die like Grimoire or “disappear” as Bugenhagen had. Less work for the Turks that way.

It was good advice, though. He had plenty of bright minds working under him, worthy of the opportunity, and elevating some of them up the company ladder would give him someone to talk to at this sort of event. “I’ll think on it.”

Perhaps he’d look into taking up Grimoire’s student too, as a final favor to his friend. And… “Speaking of successors, I hear you’ve taken Vincent into your department.”

“He’s very keen. I believe he’ll do well. I have him interning with Veld.”

Gast looked down at his wine, the dark swirling scarlet of it. “And so the world moves on, leaving the past further behind.”

“Sometimes it is better left, so we can move to the future unencumbered,” Naghi said, and gestured at the catwalk hatchway, inviting Gast back into the hall.

Perfect timing. Gast heard a ripple of louder conversation, laughter, as Rupert and Cassia Shinra entered. They were smiling, their arms linked, though Gast knew it was a marriage of wealth, not love. He took another sip of his wine before standing from the rail, and it was sour in his mouth. 

“I can’t agree with that, Naghi,” he sighed, joining the man. “In my experience, the future is always modeled on the past.”


	7. 1976 Rupert

Through the penthouse windows, the city winked and glittered in the night, like a woman’s jewelry box tipped over, its contents spilling down. Twenty-some years in the making it had been, and none of it possible without him. Rupert’s lip curled. He felt no satisfaction looking at it, this city created by his hands, his mind, his money. Only stymied anger.

Out past the glowing docks in the harbor, there was a ring of incandescent gems in the sea: the lights of the ongoing construction on the new underwater reactor. He could almost hear the throbbing, bone-shaking hum of the great pumps at work. The reactor would have been finished this year if it had been built according to the original plan. First, it had been the damn city counsel, heedless of all the money he’d given them over the years, forcing him to put it out in the bay. They’d whined to him about the wishes of their constituents as though they didn’t realize that their job was to manage the public for him. Then Edgar and his engineers had needed more time, more equipment, more money to get the work done in such a challenging place. Rupert could almost forgive that, but the memory of Victor’s endless griping over the cost remained an irritant. 

And then, when construction had been poised to begin, the environmentalists, always a thorn in his side, had come out of the woodwork, forming flotillas at sea, complaining about the impact on the ecosystem. He had intimidated and paid his way clear of that mess, only for progress to be halted three more times by deaths that resulted in safety inspections. Shinra was still entangled in a lawsuit with one of the crusading widows. 

Delay, delay, delay, while gil bled out of his pockets and little people thought they could dictate how he ran his company. Rupert cursed them all. 

If you looked at the time and effort spent, the piles and piles of gil invested - this whole city should be his. Without him, Junon would still be withering on its vine, its heyday passed. He’d put the city on the cultural and political maps again, too, when the old money families had been leaving for Costa del Sol and the new money had avoided the city like a dead fish. He’d put the factories here, and the little reactors. He’d put power and water and a phone in every house. He’d built the damn houses!

And it wasn’t only Junon. Little nations everywhere had use for his company. His mako fueled their cars, trains, and ships. His media gave them their news. His engineers built them their little toys and devices; his scientists found new cures for their ailments. His army, on his dime, protected them from ravaging monsters, when their own weak governments couldn’t protect them from the new mutations.

This fiasco had shown him that he could not count on the gratitude of others. Any excuse they had to get even more from him, they’d take it. 

He needed a capital of his own.

One single city, built from the ground up with Shinra’s needs in mind, not retrofitted to be halfway suitable. A marvel that would show the world Shinra’s brilliance and power, a city the world would orbit around.

Kings and emperors were relics of the past; he had no use for such titles. He needed neither crown nor throne. But he would never again bow to the whims of those lesser than him, allow them to make demands upon him. His will would supreme and uncontested. He had brought so much to the world, the world deserved to be his.

He marched abruptly to a table. Spread across it was the latest batch of maps sent back by his surveyors. Rich mako sites were marked with green X’s. There were clusters of them scattered thickly across the far north, which he rejected as too cold and inhospitable. The island of Mideel, too, was a mass of green, but it was too small, with too few resources.

It would have to be on one of the main continents. The Asgar area, perhaps. Fertile land. He’d never been to the area but he could picture it. Lush, rolling plains leading to steep cliffs. Little woodlands with homesteads scattered among the trees. Not too far from the coast, so shipping wouldn’t be a problem, especially once he had a railway built. Snow in winter but pleasant summers, not too hot. Lots of little towns to provide workers, all walled to keep wildlife out. 

He wouldn’t put walls around his city. It needed to be a trophy the whole world would envy. For a moment, he entertained the idea of a floating city but he dismissed the notion as a daydream. They weren’t there yet. Rupert was a practical man. He didn’t dream, he did. But the city could still be elevated, perhaps on pillars… It would be a symbol of progress and prestige. Of promise. People would strive to gain entry to it, his city of the new future.

“Cassia,” he called into the penthouse depths, “I’m taking a trip to the country. Get the girl to pack my things.”

He uncapped a red pen and drew a circle in the middle of Asgar’s towns. Now, if only the area would live up to its promise.


	8. 1967 Edgar

The broad farmhouse table was covered in blueprints and schematics. Coffee cups and bits of steel hardware served as paperweights. Breakfast plates rested at the edges of the table or were held in hand. Edgar ate his fried eggs, golden hash browns, fatty bacon, and whole-grain toast without really tasting them. His sense of smell was crap, so he had a poor sense of taste anyway, but right now it was because he was trying desperately to be preoccupied with the soil report he was reading, ignoring the display across the table.

It was difficult, though. The girl _would_ keep sighing and giggling. No matter how loudly Edgar crunched his toast, he couldn’t drown her out. When he lifted his head to scan the table for a progress report on the earthworks, his gaze snagged on the beetroot red face of the farmer, the chalky paleness of his wife. Edgar felt his face twitch as he restrained a wince, and he cast a half-mortified, half-pleading look at Rupert.

_Please… in their own home? Right in front of them?_

The president was reading, too, eyes fixed on a grainy sheaf of faxes. He didn’t see Edgar’s silent remonstration. He held a slice of bacon in his right hand, and the fingers of his left hand trailed up and down the bare leg of the girl curled in his lap. Golden blonde, with bones as delicate as a bird’s, she couldn’t be more than sixteen. 

Edgar looked back at the soil report, graphs and figures blurring together. He took another unthinking bite of the tasteless toast. Melaine was a lovely girl certainly, growing into herself like a narcissus unfurling. Edgar had taken a few admiring glances of his own when they first arrived to take up residence at the sprawling Deusericus ranch house, President Shinra having dismissed the local Asgar inns as “shabby”. The Deusericus family owned a majority of the land here; the first step to building Midgar was winning them over. Money, as always, did the trick.

But now… this. Did Rupert think that, since the deeds were signed, his behavior didn’t matter? Edgar wasn’t sure what made him less comfortable, the girl’s age or the president’s blatant lack of respect for their hosts’ dignity. 

“Hey,” the girl sighed. 

Edgar swallowed his toast and reached for his coffee cup, not looking.

“Hey, Mr. Edgar.” 

_Damn_. Melaine’s skin was golden-tan, flushed to rose, and her eyes very wide and dark. The papers crinkled in Edgar’s grip.

“Do you have the houses designed yet? For the top of the _ohh_ \- the plate?” Rupert’s hand had vanished from view under the table, but his arm was still moving languidly. Other than that, he didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything beside his faxes.

“I don’t,” Edgar answered, smiling pleasantly. How he wished he could stand up and leave. “I’m working on the pillars that will support the plate structure, and when I get to the buildings, I have to do the headquarters first of all.”

“ _Aah_ \- I wonder if they’ll be like Junon?” Her blonde head turned in toward Rupert, her pink mouth turned down. “I want to live in a penthouse, not one of those nasty brick apartments,” she pouted.

Rupert didn’t lookup. “We’ll see.”

Melaine tossed her head back, sending a curtain of glinting golden hair back over her shoulder. “ _Aah_!” she gasped, one hand grabbing white-knuckled on the table, then she grinned. “Well, Mama, Papa? What do you think?” She paused, gazing at them.

In contrast to her flushed liveliness, they had the rictus faces of torture victims, her father with his jaw clenched tight and a vein pulsing in his neck, her mother with screwed-up eyes and pinched mouth.

“Shall we leave this junky barn and live in a _mmm_ skyscraper?” Melaine teased breathlessly. Her eyes darted between their faces, and her little tongue darted out to moisten her pink lips. Her parents said nothing.

Edgar glanced at Rupert and saw him smiling - the barest upward twitch of the lips under the blonde mustache - and he dropped his head back to his report. They deserved each other. He hoped without hope that Rupert would let him leave, or that someone would come in and interrupt this. The president had been irritated and hyper-sensitive since the Junon City Council made him move the mako reactor offshore, and increasingly prone to this kind of petty tyranny. Today was the most egregious he’d been about it toward Edgar, which wasn’t fair, since Edgar hadn’t liked moving the reactor site any more than Rupert had. Less, since he was the one responsible for figuring out to make it happen.

Melaine had the same ruthless instinct for sniffing out weakness as the man holding her. She addressed Edgar again, forcing him to look at her. “Midgar will be _ah!_ even nicer than Junon, right, Mr. Edgar?”

 _Smile, smile._ “Yes. Much nicer. We’ve made such great technological strides since we started the Junon Renovation Project.” Never mind that he’d thought Junon would be the culmination of his career, that it wasn’t even complete yet, that he’d thought he would spend his life there.

Rupert had tired of it, and moved on, dropping Edgar down in this wooded, provincial place full of cowshit and chocobos, expecting him to repeat his years of effort on an even more massive scale, and then forced him to sit through...

 _Rupert will tire of you too,_ he thought, without letting it show on his face. 


	9. 1977 Gast

Gast stared at his closed office door, fingers tapping nervously together.He’d locked it behind him, a common occurrence these days.Where had he gone wrong?How could he be wrong on so _many_ things and all at the same time?

Sephiroth was a child, toddling around on stubby legs.He was part Cetra.They all hoped they could make him more so.They put him through all sorts of medical tests to monitor his health and growth, to check their own progress.The poor boy threw his hands up in defense when adults approached him, no matter who.He bit, too.He was a strong child so the aides needed to be strong to control him.His pale skin was always covered in bruises.

Gast tried consoling himself with the fact that Sephiroth healed quickly.The bruises didn’t last.The damage was not permanent. 

His fingers tapped together, unnaturally cold.Not cold like the mountain town outside, but cold like the labs Sephiroth had spent his entire short life in.Gast worried about the psychological effects their treatment of the boy was causing.He had no parents, only the piecemeal kindness of the researchers when they could spare time between tests and procedures.

The thought bubbled up, as sour as acid, that the boy _ought_ to have his father.Gast had no experience raising children, nor even any siblings, so he didn’t feel qualified to take over Sephiroth’s care.But Hojo - Gast had taken to calling his former protégé by his last name only, putting distance between them - Hojo was right there.If anyone here had the right to parent the boy, it was him.If Lucrecia were still here -

He cut himself off there.Hojo had been callous even before all this.His mistreatment of the boy was not her responsibility.Where had she gone, though?She could have been a counterweight.She had been depressed after Vincent’s disappearance, a condition her unusual pregnancy had exacerbated, but Gast did not fully trust Hojo’s claim that she had had a mental breakdown and run away from the program. 

There were any number of things these days that he couldn’t fully trust Hojo about.He’d always been secretive and arrogant, with a worrying lack of empathy, but he was brilliant, too.He came at problems from angles Gast had never considered. Yet that lack of empathy was growing, turning to a lack of remorse.His pride was certainly hurt, too - they were all working with the boy’s genetics, they all knew about the affair.Vincent’s disappearance had been so sudden…

Not for the first time, he berated himself for teaching his two students all the wrong lessons.Gast made no pretensions to sainthood, but Hojo, and Hollander, as well…They cared for nothing besides their theories and their prestige. 

He’d failed, too, at looking after Grimoire’s legacy.And there was the quandary Bugenhagen had left him.The old man’s studies had concluded that mako was pure life energy.Too much of it and things would rot, too little and things would die.Gaia spun in a delicate balance and mako extortion would tip its scales toward disaster.

The last time Gast had been to Midgar to speak with the president, not quite two years ago, he’d seen what his friend had meant.The lush farmland was drying up, crops failing, the rich dark soil turning to grey dust.The shadow of the part-built city stretched across skeletal trees and dry stream beds.He’d mentioned it to Shinra, then found himself packed back off here to remote Nibelheim before he could even return to his hotel.Rupert (and Edgar, when Gast tried talking to him about it) did not want to hear that mako’s brilliant allure was the gleam of fool’s gold.

The mako was not Gast’s project.Sephiroth was not his, either, nor Genesis and Angeal.He’d buried himself deep in his own research, hiding from the moral quandaries all around him.But there was no escaping them.He had creeping doubts about JENOVA herself now.

When he’d found her, feminine form gleaming inside a cyan-green mako crystal, his heart had lifted.They’d extracted her from it with care - and what else could she have been but an Ancient?She looked so close to human.The differences only cemented his belief that she was unusual, special.The thought she might _not_ be a Cetra was not one he’d even contemplated.

But all the ways in which her body differed from a human one were magnified a thousandfold on the cellular level.There was some human-like DNA in her, and they’d isolated that for use in Projects S and G.Mostly, though, she was entirely alien, her cellular structure like nothing like else on the planet.Even the elements used to construct her cells - the only matches Gast could find were from extraterrestrial impact sites.The dreadful thought occurred to him that the humanoid DNA in her was not _hers_ , was just - stored, for some reason.

His cold fingers curled into fists.What was she, really?And what effect would her cells have on the boys whose very essences had been altered to include them?

He looked out the window.There was snow mounded on the sill, snow blanketing the unused garden outside and falling in fat flakes from the sky.Further down the valley, smoke rose from chimneys in the sleepy village.There was no one here he could talk to about his doubts.He missed Grimoire and Bugenhagen fiercely, the grief thick in his throat. 

There was a slim chance, though, that the old man was not dead, that the Turks had not disposed of him for his questioning ways.A picture rose in Gast’s memory: the map of Gaia, pinned to the wall.A red pin marking the place that truly held the researcher's heart.

Gast looked again at the snow, and down at his pale, bloodless hands.He was, he thought, long overdue for a vacation.


	10. 1982 Rupert

Cassia wore pure white. Rupert didn’t care much for the color on her. She was pale anyway, white clothes made her look ghostly. Her wedding gown had at least been cream and champagne silk and lace, drawing out the gold in her hair, the blush in her lips and on her cheekbones. In her stark white hospital gown, among the white and pale antiseptic blues of the private room, she seemed as chilly as a glacier.

Against all the white, the pink face of the baby in the incubator was like a coral droplet, vital and alien.

He listened intently as the nurse gave him the baby’s weight and length and vital statistics, and a progress report on Cassia’s health. They were both improving together, stronger every day.

“Good,” he said, “considering the amount I’m paying for this.”

The nurse - dark-haired, square-faced, old, _ugly_ \- flushed slightly, and stammered. Indelicate, she clearly thought, to talk about the money. He’d paid for this private wing, this hospital, this entire city. Why shouldn’t he talk about the money? He could say two words and have her fired, three words more and have her evicted, sent to live below the plate, in the fish-stinking slums.

He cast an irritated eye on Cassia. If she’d held on seven more weeks, as her due date had indicated, she could have delivered the infant in the security and comfort of the new medical center in the Midgar headquarters. Instead, he’d been forced to come back to Junon for the birth, and then they’d had all these health complications forcing him to stay.

He wasn’t going to risk losing his heir because a phone call took too long to ring through to him in Midgar. 

“Leave us.”

The nurse hesitated, jaw dropping open slightly, fish-like, and he resolved to have her job terminated. “I’m on duty -“

“Not anymore. Leave, and don’t bother coming back.”

Her face went milk white, and she spun on her heel, almost running from the room.

Rupert went to the incubator. The infant was sleeping, lying on his front, small head turned sideways, a slice of wrinkled face visible between arctic-blue blanket and robin-egg-blue cap. 

Lazard had been awake and active, fussing in his crib. Rupert had only stopped in to see him once, at a time when his Turks had drawn Melaine away. She’d been an entertaining distraction, but she had her payments, more money than a farmer’s daughter deserved, and he didn’t intend to meet her again and get his suit ruined by her snot and tears. Lazard was a month old by then, with a thick thatch of dark blond hair and his mother’s dark blue eyes. The chart beside his crib said he weighed more than a dozen pounds.

Rufus, by contrast, had Rupert’s icy blue eyes, thin, wispy platinum hair, weighed a hair under six pounds, and spent nearly all his time sleeping. Even when he was awake, he didn’t fuss much or cry, simply watched everything around him, slightly cross-eyed. He’d been intubated for the initial week, and his tiny pink fists still rose in front of his face protectively when anyone came near. 

Rupert put his blue-gloved hand into the incubator and laid it on the baby’s back. A little bubble of spit formed beside the infant’s lips and burst, but there was no other reaction.

Warmth travelled up Rupert’s arm from the machine, coiling in his chest, hotter and hotter, some emotion he had no name for. If Cassia had disappointed him, he might eventually have gone back for the proven fertile Melaine, low class though she was. But he did not need to. Here was his lawful heir, small enough to hold comfortably in his two hands.

“How… is he?” Cassia’s voice was hoarse with sleep. Rupert removed his hand carefully, resisting the urge to yank it away as though he’d been caught touching something he shouldn’t.

“He’s fine.” He turned to face her. “You’re doing fine, too, the nurses say.”

She smiled, sunshine gleaming on a snowbank. “Are you glad of it?”

He said nothing, looking at her, and her smile faded, returning to the guarded coolness she habitually wore in his presence.

“How I feel is immaterial,” he said. His fingers curled up, trapping the warmth in his palm. “This business is keeping me away from Midgar longer than planned.”

“I’ll endeavor to recover more quickly,” she said, flower-blue eyes sliding coldly past him to the incubator. A spark came back into them, the sunlight smile drifted over her face again. Rupert’s hands clenched tight.

“Take your time.” He strode out and discarded his gloves, gown, cap, and overshoes in the waste receptacle. He had a phone brought to him, calling Naghi, arranging matters about the nurse. And about Melaine. No need to keep the fish on the line any longer. Let her slip back into the muck she’d come from.

“But…”

“Sir?”

“Keep eyes on them. If Lazard shows promise…”

“Sir.”


	11. 1986 Scarlet

Another slide clicked into place. Missiles trailing white smoke headed toward the steel doors of a concrete bunker. The photo was captured over the shoulder of a Sweeper robot. Scarlet loved this shot. It showcased both the devastating firepower of her weapons platforms and the frontline capabilities of her camera-drones. The next shot was from moments later - the steel doors blown away, the bunker cracked and broken. The video of this test was included in the demo marketing materials Carmine Security Solutions sent to serious clients, which meant at least some of the men in this boardroom had already seen this. That didn’t change the beauty of the shots, or the satisfied warmth Scarlet felt rising inside her at the admiring murmurs she heard.

She supposed some of their pleasure came from seeing their own missiles in action. Scarlet built _machines_ , not bombs; Carmine Security’s partnership with Shinra Electric Power Company had been profitable for them all. She smoothed a crimson-nailed finger over the inches-high stack of paper in front of her. The merger proposal was sound, and no one in this room was a fool - she glanced at the half-dozing man seated three seats down, and amended it to _most_ of the people in this room. She’d heard that Palmer had once been indispensable to Shinra, helped lift the company off the ground, but she couldn’t see what use he was these days.

She glanced the other way at the stern profile of Rupert Shinra. Why _hadn’t_ he gotten rid of Palmer? She’d disposed of her own equivalent, a lecherous university professor, the moment she was capable of standing on her own. Shinra’s reputation did not include sentimentality, so she wondered what hold Palmer retained that kept his oversized buttocks in his board seat.

The last slides clicked through. A blue-suited Turk flicked the lights on again. 

“So, gentlemen?” Scarlet purred. The outcome of this meeting was already assured, their legal teams had been meeting for nearly a year now, but she wanted to hear the words said aloud, with her own ears.

The vice-president opened his mouth to speak, but the president overrode him, drowning out his words. Scarlet had taught herself to lip-read, it looked as though he’d started with, “ _We are pleased_ -“

“Everyone clear the room. I want to discuss something with Ms. Scarlet alone.”

For a millisecond, anger tightened Scarlet’s mouth before she smoothed the expression away. “Of course, Mr. President.” She had waited a long time for this, she could wait a little longer.

The others cleared out of the room - Shinra’s other board members, their legal team, her legal team. Rangle, her lead lawyer, mouthed to her, _“Give nothing away.”_

Scarlet smirked. She hadn’t lost a negotiation since puberty. 

The door clicked shut. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs. Her pantyhose made a faint rasping noise. “What did you want to talk about?”

“You want a board seat.”

“I do. It’s non-negotiable.” Anger filled the back of her mouth like blood, but she smiled, rubbing two of her fingers along the sheaf of papers before her. He was delaying her to quibble about _this_? The Shinra board of directors had never had a female member, so his attitude wasn’t entirely unexpected, but she’d thought their legal teams had hashed it all out already.

Rather than replying at once, he drew a wrapped cigar from his pocket, and then a golden cigar cutter and an engraved lighter, setting them down in a neat row on the table. “I admire your products. I have heard,” he slowly unwrapped the cigar, “some unsavory things about you, personally.”

Her red-painted lips curved up. “Mr. President, with respect, I’ve heard worse about you.”


	12. 1989 Godo

The fifth floor of the pagoda was inviolate ground. To set foot there without an invitation from the Lord was to accept death. The ninja of Wutai tested themselves by trying the climb, dozens of them every year, whispering of a great reward for those who succeeded. In Godo’s lifetime, only four had ever reached the top without killing or crippling themselves in the attempt, and their reward was indeed death.

Chekov, Gorkii, Staniv, and Shake served Godo directly now. After conquering the four lower floors and surviving the fight on the fifth floor, each had relinquished their true name, their possessions, their prior relationships, even their appearances. Godo alone knew who they had once been. To the world, their old selves were dead. Incense burned before their graves.

Slates thus wiped clean, they became the perfect guards for Wutai, and leaders of the most effective spy network on Gaia.

Gorkii’s voice was a deep, gravelly rumble, matching his barrel-chested guise. He knelt with one knee and one fist pressed to the ground, looking grave. “The survey team in the Taihang range has encountered an accident - a rope bridge they were crossing split, and two men and a pack chocobo fell to their deaths.”

“Only two?”

“Yes, lord. An overnight rain made the ropes tougher than anticipated, and most of them made it across before it snapped.”

Godo rubbed a hand over his chin, hiding his disappointment under thoughtfulness. Shinra’s “geology survey” teams were in Wutai ostensibly to study the lifestream here. Godo had chosen not to spend political capital fighting against the visitation, but that didn’t mean he would permit them free rein on his land.

Wutai did not need a reactor. Wutai did not want a reactor, nor the heavy-handed influence of Shinra Electric Power Company that would follow it. Godo was the ruler of a sacred country, the land that Leviathan had raised from the great sea. They had their own ways here, and no foreign interloper was going to change that.

Much of the country was mountainous, too steep to farm or settle. The survey teams had brought their own porters and hired no guides. Accidents were common in the higher elevations. No blame could be laid at Godo’s feet for what befell them up there. 

“Tell your ninja to not become impatient. Another opportunity will present itself.”

If President Shinra thought he was the new ruler of the world, then he would find that Wutai thought differently.


	13. 1994 Victor

In the solitary hush of the private hospital, the heart monitor’s beeping and the air conditioner’s humming sounded as loud as an industrial zone. Victor stared up at the faintly buzzing fluorescent light. Must they keep the room so cold? It reminded him of vacationing up at Icicle Inn as a boy. Rupert’s branch of the family had always gone to Nibelheim, but Victor’s mother preferred the ski slopes of the Icicle Range. The old lodge had been demolished a few years ago, making way for a new resort. 

He'd seen so many old things torn down, he thought, to make way for the new.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in," he said, then coughed, and repeated himself, in case they hadn't heard the first time. Cassia entered the sterile room, carrying a bouquet of orange and yellow flowers and autumn leaves in a golden vase. Rufus, looking bored, stepped in behind her.

Cassia never bothered with greetings. She held up the bouquet. “I know you're not a fan of flowers, but the room is so dull. You need something in here to look at, so I brought you some color. I won’t hear any complaints.”

Vincent chuckled. “Cassia, that's more leaf than flower, so I'll allow it.” 

She gave a small smile and set the vase on a table. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, especially seeing you were able to drag Rufus in for a visit.”

Rufus gave him a blank stare, deadpan. “You are my favorite relative.”

Victor coughed a laugh. “What an honor.” Three months ago, a few days after the grandly expensive party Cassia and Rupert had thrown for Rufus' twelfth birthday, the boy had come to Victor to complain about the guests, especially the extended family members. They were all ignorant and unintelligent, he hated dealing with their idiocies, and he would be perfectly happy if they all got out of his way and dropped dead. Victor hadn't said it, but he had been reminded of Rupert at the same age.

“Do you know when they’ll release you?” Cassia asked.

He shook his head. “The doctor is talking about bypass surgery.”

She frowned. “A cure materia can't fix it?”

Rufus, who'd drifted around and was examining the medical machines hooked to Victor, shook his head. “It wouldn't work. They're more useful for fixing sudden traumas, not built-up ailments and the failures of aging bodies.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “Do your tutors cover materia?”

Rufus gave him a slightly withering look. “I studied it on my own time. There's a high demand for Cure materia; the company produces more of it than any other. It’s imperative that I know what drives our profits.”

“On the money as always, Rufus." Victor waved the boy closer. "Keep paying attention to the markets. That will be your job, once I go around the corner." Rufus' still face gave nothing away, but Victor wanted to believe he understood the importance of this. "Your father, let alone, will let the finances go to hell. He thinks he's rich enough to do anything. Watch him. Make sure the spending doesn’t get out of hand. And keep an eye on the board, too, they’re always looking to fund hare-brained schemes.”

“Victor,” Cassia sighed. "He's only a boy. He's not ready for that. And we're going to get you the very best care. You're aren't dying here."

“The new always replaces the old. One day, he’ll have my job, and then his father’s.”

Cassia's mouth went thin and chilly, and she only stayed a few more minutes. Rufus left with her, not saying anything.

Visiting hours were almost over when Rupert entered the room. He came in without knocking. Victor hadn't had a nurse in to shut the blinds yet, and Rupert was framed against the mako-green sky outside the window.

“Victor,” he stated, “you are not allowed to die.”

The statement hung in the air. Victor closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and marshaling his exhausted resources. He was so tired of dealing with this man. “I don’t think that it is up to me.”

“Bullshit. Just don’t have another heart attack for another few years. Legally, I can’t put Rufus on the board until he’s sixteen, and I don't trust any of our other relatives enough to have one of them as a placeholder. I have a war going on, you're taking me away from it. I had enough to do replacing Edgar. Wait until after we've crushed Wutai, and you can retire in comfort. Get yourself a mountain villa there.”

Ah yes, Victor thought, your stupid war. He dealt with numbers, with business. Get people involved and things got messy. Greed and pride. Stupid. Numbers were so much easier.


	14. 1994 Veld

Veld’s footsteps echoed softly off the dark marble of President Shinra’s office as he entered from the helipad. Calling it an office was a stretch. There was a desk, but the whole area would better be described as a throne room. Pillars, the best fake potted ferns and palms money could buy, a red carpet that ran from the room's main door to the desk, which was a huge edifice of black marble. Fitting for a man who wished to rule the planet. Veld didn’t care for it. There were too many shadows and no cameras. The president insisted on his privacy. Veld would have preferred security.

“You're back. Good. I’m sure you've already heard about Victor passing.” Rupert sat behind his desk, frowning deeply, rolling an unlit cigar between his fingers.

“Yes, sir.”

“Damn him. I told him I needed another three years. Now I have to come up with a placeholder.”

Veld remained silent, thinking of potential replacements, what security they would need, and how to eliminate if they became a problem.

“I have been considering lowering the minimum age of employment. From sixteen, down to fourteen. I thought about twelve, since Sephiroth did so well, but he's exceptional." Rupert started out slow, as if forming the idea as he spoke, but Veld knew his employer never aired any thought that hadn't been thoroughly vetted for its probable outcomes first.

"You're not concerned about public outcry, sir? Child labor?" It was his job to point out the weak spots, anything that could harm the company.

Rupert waved a hand. "We've dealt with the watchdog groups, blunted their teeth. They've lost their bite. The public at large will accept anything, provided their lives continue in the comfortable pattern they've gotten used to under Shinra."

"Fourteen-year-olds, sir - do you really believe they're mature enough?"

"They can work basic jobs and do decent enough. Push some papers, or a mop and bucket, fire a gun. You recall Professor Gast? The first time I spoke with him, he made the point to me that history need not be discarded in favor of all that is modern. Children have worked for most of human history. It's only for less than a century that we've spoiled them, coddling them until the day they reach majority and we suddenly say, ' _you're an adult now, time to look after yourself'_. This program will provide a more gradual transition."

“Would you be lowering the age requirements in all departments and sections of the company?”

“Yes. Public Security, especially. We need more boots on the ground in Wutai. Tell PR to play up SOLDIER and Sephiroth. Get the youth all starry-eyed and looking to us as their future.”

"Sir, Rufus isn't fourteen yet. Even if we do this, and you'll need board approval for it, you'll have to select an interim VP. Would you like me to draw up a list?"

The president drew out a gilt cigar cutter and a lighter, unworried about the board. "Do so. And tell Rufus' tutors to accelerate his courses. I want him installed on his birthday. It'll be symbolic. People will it eat it up."


	15. 1996 Rupert

An array of microphones had been set up before a small stage in the lobby of Shinra tower, and reporters were starting to arrive, camera crews setting up. The actual announcement was still - Rupert checked his watch - forty-seven minutes away. He survived the gathering reporters. Stephen Jesatria from the Midgar News Broadcast was a good reporter, did as he was told. Josue Corrag from Junon's Channel 1 News was also loyal. Of course, Rupert owned both those stations.

Then there were the independents. Victor had always said it was good to keep a few favorable independent news sources around, to prevent watchdog groups accusing Shinra of controlling the media. He couldn't see them without being reminded of cockroaches, always scuttling around in places you didn’t want them, looking for crumbs.

Still, they could be useful when fed the right crumbs. And when they tried to overstep themselves, they were easily crushed.

Grating laughter announced the arrival of the other board members. Scarlet wore a stunning red dress that slid over her body like flame, revealing and concealing, and her blond hair was tied up in a way that begged for a fist to pull it loose. She was the only one of his board members with any beauty, the only one Rupert enjoyed looking across the table at, especially now that Edgar was gone. He was always careful with her, though. She had a sharp cunning, and sniffed out weakness like a bloodhound. 

General Heidegger walked beside her, alternately laughing loudly and barking orders into a radio, managing tonight's security. His black beard had grown long enough to cover the top row of medals pinned to his green coat. Rupert's eyes narrowed, watching them. Heidegger used to always agree with Rupert, but he was siding with Scarlet more often lately. Their friendship had surprised him - the Turks told him it was, indeed, only friendship. Rupert preferred the department heads to resent each other, and see him as their main ally, the one to convince or please.

Palmer, trying to be part of their conversation, trailed behind them. Scarlet, in private, occasionally repeated her question of why he kept the fool around. It was because that fool knew his place. Palmer may have helped out Rupert in the beginning, but now everything he had was because of Shinra. Palmer knew which side his bread was buttered on. As long as he agreed with Rupert during board meetings and stayed within his good graces, Rupert saw no reason to fill the spot with someone else.

Reeve Tuesti arrived a few minutes after them, talking to some employe, probably from his department. Edgar had recommended him; Rupert tolerated him. He was quiet and dark-haired and never put up too much of an argument at meetings. His department ran smoothly, and he'd gotten on well with Victor. His designs were excellent, improvements even on Edgar's work, especially what he was turning in for Neo-Midgar. But he was as interesting as stale bread to Rupert.

Last to enter was his golden goose, Hojo. Hunched over, with greasy hair and a wide frog mouth, he was among the ugliest men Rupert had ever met. But - his mind. Oh, his mind was brilliant. Gast’s promised land, the land of the Ancients, if anyone could find it, it would be Hojo and his creations. As long as Rupert funded the man, that brilliance was his.

He looked, finally, to his side. Rufus stood watching the room with a bored expression, occasionally addressing a remark to his Turk bodyguard. With the announcement only minutes away, pride swelled in Rupert's chest. His new Vice President. His legacy. A new future for Midgar and the planet. Another voice on the board he knew he could rely on. He’d spent many hours teaching Rufus himself, telling him how it all worked. About how ruthless you had to be in business, how to avoid sentimentality and attachment to things that no longer served their purpose. How to manage people. How to avoid weakness in the self, and to cast it out or capitalize on it when found in others.

Rupert’s own father had been weak. He would have ruined the company if Rupert had let him. Rupert had seized it from him to ensure its future. Victor’s untimely death two years ago had reminded him of that lesson all over again. There was too much at stake. Hundreds of meters below his feet, he had Deepground as his insurance against the company being taken from him. Three meters away, Rufus was his insurance that the company would always be run in his image.


	16. Notes* Brief History of Gaia

*Notes - This is a partial history that we’ve come up with to explain the weird technology discrepancies around Gaia and to set the stage for how Shinra was able to ‘conquer’ the world.

Neolithic/Cetran Age

At first, there was the Cetra, a nomadic culture closely intone with the planet.   
They befriended a beast species endemic to Cosmo Canyon.  
At some point, they started to build settlements that in time became cities. However, they kept their nomadic ways, traveling between the cities with the flow of the lifestream. (Think Air nomads from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I also take inspiration for Cetra culture from the Indus River Valley Civilization)  
Who stayed in the cities? Young families, the old and the ill/infirm.  
But as society progressed some started to travel less and less. This speed up society and other settlements started cropping up away from the few main cities and the lifestream. Materia creation and airships started to become a thing.  
Around this time those who stayed put were growing less in tune with the planet. Before when everyone was more nomadic it was “What is mine is yours”. Now chieftains and economies are cropping up. (Think the other bronze age civilizations)  
Eventually, there are two distinct groups. Cetra and Humans. Those who can hear the planet and those who can not.

2000 till the Shinra era (Civilization Collapse)  
The Calamity arrives. The Cetra who are closer to the planet and nomadic are hit harder. Humans band together during these hard times and small kingdoms form. Because of the calamities spread people become more territorial and wary of strangers/travelers.  
The last of the Cetra seal the calamity away. Humans are the dominant race on the Planet living in isolated kingdoms.

1900 - 1500 till the Shinra era (Dark age)  
Things stagnate. Degrade. Past technologies are considered cursed/bad, same with much of Cetran culture as they are the ones who ‘carried the sickness’. Racism.   
The beast species that had traveled with the Cetra retreat back to Cosmo Canyon. Some Cetra go with them.

1500 - 900 till the Shinra era (Classical Antiquity)  
Eventually, the reason everyone is living isolated fades away into myth and religion. Coastal areas are the first to start interacting with each other again. Advancements in society and technology restarts in these areas.  
On the Eastern continent where the climate is more temperate, the land is less extreme and the wildlife is less dangerous, society progresses faster. Kingdoms give way to city-states and local coalitions. (Think Greek city-states)  
On the Western continent, tiny kingdoms fight amongst each other, some dissolving into clans. (Think the British isles)  
Wutai has a war of unification, one group taking over the whole island.

900 - 800 till the Shinra era (Early Middle Ages)  
Mideel has a unification war, gobbling up the smaller islands in the archipelago.  
Few Cetra remains, keeping their Cetran heritage a secret. Marrying into human families.

800 - 500 till the Shinra era (High Middle Ages)  
Unification wars are the thing, multiple people try this on the west continent. Tiny kingdoms and chiefdoms become large for short periods of time. Some fleeing from these wars resettles the northern continent.  
Someone on the east continent tries to become king of their city-state, it doesn’t go over well but the thought is now there.  
Someone else tries and they succeed, this prompts others to do the same.

500 - 400 till the Shinra era (Late Middle Ages)  
Kingdoms are back on the east continent. It’s time for a great conquerer. Some person unifies the east and goes to attack the southern islands and the west. They conquer the islands and get some of the west before they die and things start to fall apart.  
Wutai’s empire falls apart into separate kingdoms.

400 - 300 till the Shinra era (Post Middle ages)  
The southern islands are now independent of each other and the West’s technology is more in line with the East’s. New ideas have been spread! Industrial revolution!

300 - 200 till the Shinra era (Early Modern Period)  
An industrial revolution sparks a political revolution. Down with the monarchy! Except not really, those from the top figure out how to hold on to power, or those new to power fall into old habits.  
Wutai becomes an empire again.

200 - 100 till the Shinra era (Late Modern Period)  
Corruption and political backstabbing bring things to a halt. Time to bring up old grievances. World war. West vs East vs South vs North. Major loss of human life. Wutai stays neutral as a hermit kingdom as does Cosmo Canyon.  
New city-states and counties. Most are in debt. Who are the winners? The city-state of Junon comes out on top, its ally the coalition of small towns and cities that one day will become Midgar took a beating (We’re calling this coalition Asgar). Fort Condor is established. Costa del Sol loses big time and remakes its economy catering to Junon and the Asgar coalition.  
Most places take cues from Junon and Asgar after the war, becoming democracies.

100 - 20 till the Shinra era (Post-Modern Movement)  
Cultural resurgence! After the world war, many areas tried to emulate Junon and Asgar but as those two had never really flexed their power or dominance but also didn’t really help anyone their influence faded and small grass-root groups started to pick up parts of their lost heritage while keeping some things from post-war, like democracies.  
However there are still grievances from the war, thus small wars and battles break out.

20 - till the Shinra era  
The beast species and Cetra have not been having a good time and their populations have dwindled exponentially. While they are long-lived they are not prolific.  
As everyone becomes more insular a global economic depression hits.  
Rupert Shinra is born during this time to a family of old money in Junon, that is struggling but still has some investments. One of which is weapon manufacturing. His father R. Shinra would play on the fear and nationalism to get people to buy from them.   
At a young age, Rupert starts building a corporate empire determined for his family not to backslide any further. Besides making safe investments and bullying others to get what he wants, he also funds research for new things. Finding how to use Mako for energy.

How Shinra takes over the world.  
Because of the economic depression, Rupert can make deals with the weakened local governments, and provide jobs and stability for the people. However, as the economy recovers and governments get back on their feet his power is threatened. To keep control he has the science department of his business create monsters and covertly releasees them. Now with monsters running around Shinra is the only one with a large enough budget for a well-equipped fighting force. This starts Shinra’s para-military.

As Shinra grows it becomes the main provider of energy, water, transportation, communication, weapons, medical science, media outlets, and protection. With all of this, they take over the running of cities and towns, local governments having to kowtow to Shinra’s demands. 


	17. Notes* Early Shinra Timeline

*Notes - Some of this is canon, some is made up 

Early Shinra Company history

Shinra Weapons Manufacturing Owned by the Shinra family

**1930’s**

Rupert Shinra works for his father’s company. His father has him start at the bottom ‘to build character’.

**1940’s**

Rupert takes over the presidency of the company from his father  
Rupert meets Edgar - studying mako energy  
Rupert meets Gast - studying the Cetra

**1950's**

With promising research going on Rupert takes a gamble and starts investing in manufacturing household appliances and real-estate in Junon. With new money and jobs coming in Junon’s economy restarts.   
Is now known as Shinra Manufacturing Works  
Rupert Shinra is introduced to two friends of Gast’s - Grimoire Valentine - studying summon materia, and Bugenhagen - studying the lifestream and formation of materia  
1959 - Research into Mako Energy pays off. They get a higher yield of electricity from refining mako than they do by burning coal or oil. They start building small refineries.  
Gast finds the Calamity  
Construction on the upper city of Junon begins.

  
 **1960’s**

Construction on the Nibel reactor, a more cost-efficient mako processing plant, begins.  
Shinra starts getting into medical science, producing potions and ethers  
Shinra continues to buy land around the planet. Sending surveyors to find potential places to put Mako reactors  
The plate of upper Junon is completed  
1967 - JENOVA is housed inside the Nibel reactor  
Bugenhagen leaves Shinra due to ideological differences.

  
**1970’s**

1970 - Gast becomes the head of Shinra’s Science Department and Grimoire is killed by Chaos.  
Shinra now starts producing mako engines in vehicles.  
Shinra starts to build the Gongaga and Junon reactors. There is some dissent from the locals about building a reactor in Junon (Large, smelly, unsightly) They have a smaller refinery outside Junon but the city is growing too large for it. Edgar comes up with a new design to put the reactor under the ocean.  
Rupert Shinra gets married  
1976 - The Company becomes the Shinra Electric Power Company and after the dissent in Jonon and having to fit his plans to others Shinra want his own city that he can control. So he moves over to the northern part of the east continent and starts to build his own city in between a coalition of towns. He moves here because there will be easy labor and resources provided by the towns. He calls his new city Midgar. The first sector built is Sector 0.  
Uninterested in politics at the provincial level, he sets up a puppet government with the first Mayor appointed by him. Says that as the city grows there will be elections. (The first man stays in power for a few terms because of gerrymandering)  
Deepground experiments began  
Rupert has an affair with a woman from one of the seven towns, having a son (Lazard) with her.  
1977 - The JENOVA project sees its first fruit with the birth of Genesis and Sephiroth. At the end of the year, Angeal is born

**1980’s**

Gast leaves Shinra. A power struggle ensues between Gast’s students, Hojo and Hollander. Hojo wins as his project S is more recognized by Rupert than Hollander’s project G.  
Scarlet’s company (making security robots) is purchased/absorbed by Shinra. Part of the deal is Scarlet gets a board seat.  
1982 - Rufus is born  
Sector 0 is completed.  
1985 - Hojo with the Turks help, finds Gast. Kills him and brings in Ilfalna and Aerith.

  
  
**1990’s**

Shinra has finished the pilers and framework for the other eight sectors and starts building the plates in earnest.  
1990 - Evan Townshend, an illegitimate son of Shinra’s is born  
1992 - Wutai war begins. Sephiroth is a SOLDIER 1st Class. Ilfalna and Aerith escape.  



End file.
